War on Terror

Gary Anderson

The Afghan
stalemate will only be broken when the various factions that make up the
Taliban realize two things. First, that they are not strong enough to capture
the major population centres of Afghanistan as they did in the late ‘90s; and
second, that they are losing ground to a far more dangerous enemy in the form
of ISIS than they face in the Afghan government. Until the Afghan security
forces stop losing ground, the Taliban will continue to hope the government
will crack....

Andre Vltchek

Andre Vltchek

A son of the
super elite Afghan ‘exiles’ living in London, once ‘shouted’ at me, via
WhatsApp, after I dared to criticize one of the officially-recognized gurus of
the Western anti-communist left, who happened to be his religiously admired
deity: “I’m completely amazed that you’d do such a thing. Then again, you’re
Russian… And Russians held a strange superiority complex about dominating the
whole Asian & African continents – even when nobody invited or asked them
to. Historical examples are plenty… Don’t go to a country to report about
what’s actually going on when you can’t even speak the language!” This was his
tough verdict on Russia and on my work; a verdict of ‘Afghan man in London’,...

Andre Vltchek

Andre Vltchek

Many foreigners
and even Afghans are now convinced that the “true” Afghanistan is only what is
being shown on the television screens, depicted in magazines, or what is buried
deep in the archives and libraries somewhere in London, New York or Paris.....

Najib Tun Razak

Najib Tun Razak

We must ensure that the barbarism we see in Syria and Iraq is rooted
out. We must show that we stand ready to confront terror swiftly and decisively
wherever and whenever it manifests itself. We must never surrender. It is up to
all of us at the summit to forge this partnership and prove, once and for all,
that there is no clash of civilizations between the Muslim world and the
West.....

Al-Jazeera

Despite the chaos, wars and revolutions, the interest of Europeans,
Americans and the Chinese remains high in what may be the largest untapped oil
reserves on the continent, "the El Dorado of the Sahel", which
extends from Mauritania to Algeria across north Mali.''''

Rafia Zakaria

Rafia Zakaria

The world
should not be surprised if the next episode of the interminable ‘war on terror’
is not a scaling back but a renewed and ruthless turn to occupation, one that
would dominate and, in the minds of those orchestrating it, annihilate
terrorism. If we know anything about the new American president, it is his
penchant for projecting strength and authority, and as he grows into his power
as president, it is unlikely that America will be enough to exercise it....

Robin Wright

The terrorism threat from Syrian refugees is low for three reasons,
according to Dan Byman, a staff member of the 9/11 Commission, which in 2011
conducted the official inquiry into the Al Qaeda attacks. “First, very few
among the refugees support the terrorists,” Byman, now a senior fellow at the
Brookings Institution, told me. “Second, the vetting for the refugees is
extensive. Third, the American Muslim community has consistently shown itself
to be hostile to terrorism and reports most of the few suspects in their
ranks.”....

Yassir Morsi

Yassir Morsi

No, the
terrorists are not to blame for Australia’s racism. If someone cannot tell the
difference between Susan Carland and Osama bin Laden then they are not
ignorant. They are willingly ignorant. But that’s the logic of racism, to
dispossess the racist even of their own humanity and their sense of it, and
above all to dispossess Muslim from their own lived Islam, from its own
contested cultural debates, from its own expansive and endlessly deep heritage,
from its own linguistic lineage...

Justin Raimondo

Justin Raimondo

And if this be “isolationism,” then let the War Party make the most of
it. Because the American people are done with global crusading. Enough is
enough: let them kill each other if that’s what they’re intent on doing. Let’s
just make sure that they aren’t killing us....

Phyllis Bennis

Phyllis Bennis

If we‘re serious about ending terror attacks, there are a host of
non-military approaches that hold far more promise than bomb-drone-kill.
Diplomacy, humanitarian support, arms embargos, economic assistance, more
diplomacy — we need to use them all instead of military action, not alongside
it. Step one means acknowledging that the current strategy is failing....

Preeth Vijay

One of the Prophet Muhammad’s most important goals in revealing the
Quran was to end the kind of bloodshed that Islamic terrorists commit today, as
that bloodshed was rampant all throughout pre­-Islamic Arabia. Essentially,
Muhammad brought peace to the previously war­-torn Arabian Peninsula
single-handedly, and he did so through a campaign of nonviolence and the
creation of a peaceful coalition of tribes. While many verses of the Quran deal
with war, the only​wars permitted by
the Quran are ones of self­-defence. The Quran considers war to be evil, but
sometimes necessary to prevent persecution or maintain decent values.....

The Economist

Involvement by the PKK or any of its offshoots in the Ankara bombing
would mark a critical turn in a war that has already gripped the country for
more than three decades. It would also signal a dangerous shift in the PKK’s
strategy. In recent years, the group has shied away from attacks on civilian
targets. Its decision to abandon that policy would do major damage to both the
legitimate Kurdish struggle for new rights and autonomy....

Joseph S. Nye

Joseph S. Nye

Terrorism is a
serious issue, and it deserves to be a top priority of our intelligence,
police, military and diplomatic agencies. It is an important component of
foreign policy. And it is crucial to keep weapons of mass destruction out of
terrorists’ hands. But we should not fall into the terrorists’ trap. Let the
actions of thugs play out in an empty theatre....

Mahboob A Khawaja

Mahboob A Khawaja

….. Obama’s global ‘war of terror’ has expanded to roughly 100 countries around the world, winding down the large-scale military invasions and occupations such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, and increasing the “small-scale” warfare operations of Special Forces, beyond the rule of law, outside Congressional and public oversight, conducting “snatch and grab” operations, training domestic repressive military forces in nations largely run by dictatorships to undertake their own operations on behalf of the ‘Global Godfather.’…

T.O. Shanavas, New Age Islam

Serving justice is the core of the faith of a devout Muslim. “O who you believe, be persistently standing firm in justice, witnesses for God, even if it be against yourselves or parents and relatives. Whether one is rich or poor, Allah is more worthy of both. So follow not personal inclination, lest you not be just. And if you distort [your testimony] or refuse [to give it], then indeed Allah is ever, with what you do, Acquainted.” (The Qur’an Chapter 4, verse 135.)

Nervana Mahmoud

Nervana Mahmoud

Unlike what many Muslims and the liberal western elite emphasize, contemporary terrorism undoubtedly has a religious element to it. It is frankly disingenuous to deny this reality. It is also futile, however, to judge Islam. Islam is not an entity, a specific institution, or a state.

Debasish Panigrahi

All 25 websites, barring a few exceptions, are affiliated to the IS and being used to propagate the terror group’s ideology. “While some of the sites contain videos of preachers appealing to the youth to join the terror group’s fold, others contain plain literature aimed at enticing young men towards the Jihadi ideology,” a source said, adding that most of the sites were interactive to keep the recruitment channel open.

Juan Cole

Juan Cole

A “war” on terror that characterizes, for example, all Syrian refugees as potential combatants thus plays right into the hands of recruiters like Abaaoud, who aim to “sharpen the contradictions” between Muslims and those of Christian heritage. We should rather be observing that some Syrians have joined a criminal cartel that has taken over some desert towns at gunpoint, but that most Syrians have not done so.

Shakti Sinha

Shakti Sinha

What then is
the way forward for India? One, engage more rigorously with the Gulf countries.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to UAE, the first such visit since
1981, was long overdue. ... Intelligence cooperation, including in tracking
cyberspace, is necessary to disrupt recruiting networks, fund flows and other
lifelines that sustain extreme jihadism.

Two, try and
change the emerging Wahhabi/Salafi narrative in Muslim communities by
strengthening traditional behaviour patterns and practices. As noted scholar
and reformist Sultan Shahin complains, the Indian establishment only engages with
bearded mullahs even if they are obscurantists. Recognition of diversity from
Muslims and the engagement with forward looking individuals and institutions
would be a good start. The youth are keen to grasp the opportunities provided
by an emerging India, and they are best placed to replace the narrative of
victimhood and discrimination with one of participation and hope.

Three, this
should be matched by keeping an open eye on potential ‘emigrants’, and families
given the confidence that the state would work with them to de-radicalise these
misguided youth with no stigma attached. Four, many occupations like weavers
and other artisans, where Muslims predominate, are faced with obsolescence. ...

Five, faced
with an avalanche of terrorist violence resulting in many civilian causalities,
police under pressure have occasionally charge-sheeted innocents who have been
locked up for years before being released by courts for lack of evidence. Our
legal and police system discriminates against the poor who lack resources and
connections. Where police have acted with bona fides, mistakes must be accepted
but where there is clear mala fide and injustice, restorative justice demands
should not be ignored. The characteristic of a strong state is not random
violence or arbitrary action but its ability to separate genuine mistakes from
mischief. And for ensuring the rule of law where the powerful do not get away
because of the culture of impunity......

By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan for New Age Islam

It is true that present Muslim extremism is the result of the glamourization of the self-styled concept of global Khilafat or caliphate. Its real solution lies in de-glamourizing this false ideology developed by extremists through a misinterpretation of Islamic sources. Moreover, de-glamourization of the Khilafat can be achieved by de-Islamizing this concept of the Khilafat based on false interpretation.

Robert Olson

The
battle of Kobani and Tel Abyad are vivid examples -- meta-histories -- embedded
in the contradictions and dilemmas of a global war on terror and the
nationalist demands of regional and local forces who also stress that they too
are fighting terrorism.....

Patrick Gathara

Patrick Gathara

Kenya is at war. This mantra is repeated over and over ad infinitum by government officials and pro-establishment types. At a time of military conflict, we are told, peacetime rules and conventions do not apply and we should be prepared to give up some of the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution....